LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5023, 9 June 1884, Page 3

LITERATURE.

BERYL MANSIONS. (The Argosy) [By the Author of ""in the Dead of Night."] Chapter II. — (Continued.) I sat puzzling my brains till past twoo'clock, but did not hear the footstep? again. The silence remained as unbroken as though the third floor tenant were still thousands of miles across the sea. More than once I asked myself whether it wasr possible that my ears had deceived me — whether the sounds I had heard had any existence other than in my own imagination. But they had been too real, and when I at length turned into bed it was in the firm belief that the old house had found another tenant at last, the mystery of whose silent arrival would be solved in the morning. I popped my head into Ivy's little room on my way to business. "So the long looked for one has come at last," I said. " You were very sly about it, Ivy. Not a word, not a hint even, when I saw you last evening." Daniel Ivy looked up and stared at me with an unmistakable air of bewilderment. | " I must be dull this morning, 6ir," he ' replied, " for I don't in the least know what you mean." j "Nothing very particular, Daniel. I only thought you might have told me you were expecting Mrs Bevan's nephew last night." . " But I wasn't expecting him, sir. And, what's more, if I had been expecting him, he didn't come." | " Not come ! " I exclaimed. " What do you mean ? He was walking about his room at one o'clock this morning." i Daniel looked at me as if he thought I had taken leave of my senses. "Do you see that, sir ?" he asked, pointing to a key which was hanging over the chimney piece. "Without that key nobody could get into the rooms over yours, unless they broke open the door." This staggered me a little, but I was not going to give in. " Key or no key," I said positively, " there was certainly someone walking about the room at one o'clock this morning." At this juncture Mrs Ivy called her husband. I looked at my watch, found that I was late and hurried off without further delay. When I returned homo iv the afternoon I kept out of Ivy's .way. The second night would surely prove whether I was right or wrong. And yet the more I thought of the matter the more impossible it seemed that I could be in the right when I had seen the key of the rojui hanging on the nail, undisturbed. Evening deepened into night, the outside noises gradually died away, and except for the faint rumble of a passing vehicle, or the hollow echo of a footfall now and again in the paved court, profound quietude reigned over Beryl Mansions. Ten o'clock 5 eleven o'clock ; twelve o'clock; and still the &ileiice in the old house was unbroken. There -bad been no sound of any one passing up stairs or down ; no noise of doors being opened or shut ; no footsteps pacing overhead. I began to think that, after all, my imagination must have played me false. But this waiting and watching grew dreary. I stirred up the fire and put my batchelor's kettle on the hob. The little clock on the chimney piece struck the half hour after midnight. Ah I as I live, there it is again, just as if it liad been waiting for a signal ! The unmistakable tramp of footsteps directly over my head. From side to side they pace slowly and without hurry, not once or twice, but near upon a dozen times in all ; then silence again. What will Daniel say in the morning, I wonder? After listening for n few minutes longor, I opened my door with as little noise as possible and stole down stairs, and bo out into the open air. Had thero been n light in any of Ivy's windows I should at once have summoned that functionary and imparted to him my second experience there und then. But all was in darkness. As I stood in the middle of tho court my eyes went up instinctively to the windows 'of the rooais over mine. There too^ to my

Intense surprise, I saw that all wa3 dark. ( ] I rubbed my eyes aiid looked again. Not a glimmer of light anywhere except from the window of my own room. The mystery ■was deepening. The first streaks of dawn were beginning to broaden in the east before I fell asleep, but not another sound of any kind had reached me from the mysterious stranger. Daniel Ivy was standing in the archway when I Bet out for the bank, aa if he were waiting to intercept me. " Good morning, i.ir," said ho at once ; " wex.o r you troubled with the footsteps overhead a|£un ?" " Yes, Ivy. I heard the footsteps last night even more plainly tffiin th%night before," was nny grave reply. ' M' 'surely as you are standing there someone was in the room over mine both on Monday and Tuesday night." :;.- Daniel's jaw dropped ; ho stared at me with glassy eyes. " Help un and save us !" he stammered. "If what you say is true, sir, and I don't like to doubt your word, then the room must bo haunted. There is nothing else for it." I shook my head in sjjgat-protest. "If the sounds I heard were caused by a ghost, it must be a ghost of vory substantial build indeed. I should rather put it down to a thief, Ivy, than a ghosts Daniel gave me an injured look. " Wait one moment, sir," he said, and with that he went indoors and returned with the key in his hand. Ho would examine the rooms there and then, but only on condition that I accompanied him. I agreed, and promised not to breathe a word about the affair to bis wife. For once in a way I should be half an hour late in reaching the bank, but I did not doubt for once in a way I should be excused. We retraced our steps across the court to No. 3 and began to ascend the stairs. What Daniel was about to do was obviously not to his liking. TJpwari we went till my door was passed and then higher still till we reached tho upper storey and came to a stand at the door of which we carried tho key. My pulses beat a little faster than ordinary as we stood there for a few moments waiting for Ivy to regain hia breath. Then at length the key was inserted, the handle turned and the door flung wide open. The room was in total darkness, and I fancy that we both entered it with some little trepidation. Daniel, however, at once made his way to the window and drew back a pair of heavy curtains, and then proceeded to draw up the blinds._ It at once struck me that no gleam of light could possibly penetrate outside a window covered up inside as that one was. The bright morning light came streaming in. I gazed around with curiosity. The room was plainly but comfortably furnished, without an/pretensions to taste or elegance. A horsehair sofa on one side of the fireplace, an easy chair on tho other ; a centre table, a small sideboard, a tolerably stocked bookcase in a recess next the chimneypiece, and a few cane-bottomed chairs. The room might have been occupied the previous night, or not for a year. But against the former supposition was to be set the fact that everything was in what is called " apple-pie order" ; not a chair was out of its place; not a lamp or candlestick was anywhere to be seen ; while the fire was laid ready for lighting at a moment's .notice. " Exactly as the missis left everything when she was here a fortnight since," said Daniel, somewhat reproachfully. There were two doors in the room in addition to that by which we had entered. Daniel opened one of them, and I saw that it led into another dark room. As before, he proceeded to draw back the heavy curtains The room proved to be a bedchamber. The bed with its snowy coverlet was there ready for an occupant ; towels, with the mangle crease 3 still in them, lay ...across the horse ; on the washstand was an unused cake of soap. " Nobody been here just lately, I reckon, sir," remarked 33anieL Putting back the curtains as he had found them, Ivy then opened the door of the second inner room. This room lacked both curtains and blind, and was entirely «npty. A glance around assured me that no one could have gained access to the rooms but by the staircase. But I put the question to Daniel. "There's no other entrance to the3G rooms save by the staircase that yon came np," he replied, earnestly. "Are you satisfied, sir ? " " Quite satisfied, Daniel." "Without another word he crossed to the window and began to draw down the blind. At that moment my eye was caught by a comer of something white protruding from undor the sofa cushion. I lifted the cushion and found that it was a portion of a newspaper which had apparently been thrust away there out of sight. I took it up and turned it over without thinking what I was about, when my g'ance fell upon something that startled me as I rarely had been startled in my life before. The newspaper I held in my hand was only two days old. I stared and stared at it again to make certain that my eyes had not deceived me. Üb, there could be no mistake as to the reality. To-day was "Wednesday : the date of the paper was that of the preceding Monday ; and it was on Monday night I had first heard the footsteps. I put back the newspaper where I found it, just as Daniel was drawing tho heavy curtains across the window, after which I walked out of the room and went down stairs deep in thought.